Jae Crowder Signs One-Year Deal With Bucks
JULY 9: Crowder’s new contract is official, tweets Eric Nehm of The Athletic.
JULY 1: Free agent forward Jae Crowder will return to the Bucks, according to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report and TNT (Twitter link), who reports that Crowder has agreed to a one-year deal with Milwaukee.
Milwaukee shipped out five second-round draft picks to acquire the 32-year-old vet in a three-team exchange with the Suns and Nets in February.
Exact terms of the agreement have yet to be reported. In any deal with an outside free agent, the Bucks will be limited to the veteran’s minimum after having committed big money to free agent starters Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez. However, because Milwaukee possesses Crowder’s Bird rights, the team could sign him to a contract above the standard minimum.
A journeyman 3-and-D role player for several high-level postseason teams, the 6’6″ power forward appeared in 18 contests for the Bucks as a reserve last year, averaging 6.9 PPG on .479/.436/.833 shooting splits, 3.8 RPG, 1.5 APG and 0.7 SPG.
He was cut from Milwaukee’s healthy playoff rotation by former head coach Mike Budenholzer during its five-game first round series loss to the Heat. Budenholzer reinserted the Marquette alum in limited minutes after All-NBA power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo injured his back in Game 1.
The Bucks’ salary obligations have them headed for the league’s new second luxury tax apron, which means they don’t have access to the taxpayer’s mid-level exception, valued at $5MM this year, or their bi-annual exception, worth $4.5MM.
Re-adding Crowder, who served as the starting four on consecutive Finals teams in 2020 (the Heat) and 2021 (the Suns), could be the kind of buy-low move that Milwaukee needs to nail if it hopes to return to playoff glory next spring.
Desmond Bane Signs Five-Year Max Extension With Grizzlies
JULY 8: The Grizzlies have officially completed Bane’s extension, the team announced in a press release (via Twitter).
JUNE 30: The Grizzlies are signing shooting guard Desmond Bane to a five-season maximum rookie scale extension, agents Jim Tanner, Max Wiepking and Terrence Felder tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
While Wojnarowski says the deal will be worth $207MM, that amount is a projection, as the exact sum will be tied into the league’s salary cap.
Based on Woj’s wording in his reports on the new extensions for Bane and Pacers All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton, it sounds as if Bane’s deal will likely not include the Rose rule escalator, which would have allowed him to qualify for a starting salary worth up to 30% of the cap.
If that’s the case, Bane’s new deal will feature a starting salary worth 25% of the 2024/25 salary cap when it goes into effect next year.
As Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial tweets, Bane’s new agreement will now leapfrog All-Star Memphis point guard Ja Morant‘s contract as the priciest in team history. Morant agreed to his five-year, maximum-salary rookie scale extension exactly one year ago.
Bane has quickly outperformed his selection as the No. 30 pick out of TCU in the 2020 draft. Last season, the 25-year-old averaged a career-high 21.5 PPG on .479/.408/.883 shooting splits. He also chipped in 5.0 RPG, 4.4 APG and 1.0 SPG in his 58 healthy games with Memphis. Thanks to the strong play of Morant, Bane and Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr., the Grizzlies finished with the West’s second seed for the second straight season, this time with a 51-31 record.
Injuries to starting center Steven Adams and reserve big man Brandon Clarke greatly impeded Memphis’ frontcourt during its first-round playoff series against the seventh-seeded Lakers, and the Grizzlies fell in six games.
Hornets Sign LaMelo Ball To Five-Year Max Extension
JULY 6: The Hornets and Ball have officially finalized their deal, with the team issuing a press release to confirm the signing.
JULY 1: The Hornets and LaMelo Ball are finalizing a five-year designated rookie extension that will be worth the maximum salary, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Agent Sam Permut tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link) that the two sides have reached an agreement.
Ball’s starting salary on the new deal will pay him at least 25% of the 2024/25 cap. Charania’s report suggests there will be Rose Rule language that could increase that figure to 30% of the cap if Ball earns All-NBA honors next season.
The exact value of the contract will depend on where the ’24/25 cap lands and whether Ball meets the Rose Rule criteria, but even in a worst-case scenario, it will be worth well north of $200MM. In a best-case scenario (30% starting salary, 10% cap increase), it would be worth $260MM.
Charlotte selected the 6’7″ point guard with the third overall pick in the 2020 draft. He immediately emerged as a lethal and creative scorer all over the floor, and was named the 2020/21 Rookie of the Year despite being limited to just 51 out of 72 possible games (31 starts) in his first season due to injuries.
Ailments have been a recurring theme in Ball’s young career, outside of a relatively healthy 75-game run in 2021/22, during which he made his first All-Star team as an injury replacement.
A right ankle fracture ended his 2022/23 campaign early. He played in just 36 contests for the 27-55 Hornets. When Ball did play last year, he remained his stellar statistical self, though it didn’t particularly contribute to winning. He notched 23.3 PPG on .411/.376/.836 shooting splits, 8.4 APG, 5.4 RPG and 1.3 SPG.
Charlotte is undergoing some major changes this summer. The team selected highly-touted Alabama forward Brandon Miller, widely considered to be another All-Star caliber prospect, using the second pick in this year’s draft. Former longtime majority owner Michael Jordan also sold most of his shares in the club to a new ownership group, led by tech investor Ian Loring and several notable North Carolinians. The Hall of Famer will still retain a stake in the franchise moving forward.
Heat Trade Victor Oladipo To Thunder
JULY 6: The Heat have officially traded Oladipo to the Thunder along with Miami’s own second-round picks in 2029 and 2030, the team announced (via Twitter). According to the Thunder’s own press release, Miami acquired cash in the deal.
JUNE 30: The Heat are offloading reserve shooting guard Victor Oladipo to the Thunder, sources inform Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
The Thunder will receive a pair of second-round picks from the Heat as part of the trade agreement, tweets Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The Heat, meanwhile, will net a $9.45MM trade exception by flipping his salary. Miami also still has a $4.7MM trade exception from its February deal of big man Dewayne Dedmon.
Earlier this week, the injury-plagued former All-Star picked up his player option for the 2023/24 season. Oladipo tore his left knee patellar tendon during Miami’s first round matchup against the Bucks.
As Bobby Marks of ESPN details (via Twitter), the Thunder will absorb Oladipo’s salary into its available cap space. After the deal, Oklahoma City should still have an estimated $7.2MM in available money at its disposal, as well as the $7.8MM room exception. The club currently has 16 players under contract, and will need to make more moves to reduce its head count to 15 for its standard roster this fall.
With 11 players currently signed, meanwhile, the Heat now have $172MM in committed salary. While Miami is in the luxury tax, this move shifts the team $6.5MM beneath the highly punitive second tax apron. As Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype (Twitter link) notes, the team is in better position to use its $5MM taxpayer mid-level exception, but still may have to shed a little salary to do so.
Should the 31-year-old Oladipo remain with the Thunder, it would represent his second tour of duty with the team. After being drafted by the Magic with the second overall pick out of Indiana in 2013, he spent three seasons with Orlando before being dealt to Oklahoma City in 2016. The Thunder flipped him to the Pacers as part of the Paul George trade the following summer. With the Pacers, Oladipo blossomed into a two-time All-Star thanks to a versatile scoring touch and stellar perimeter defense.
His major lower body injury issues first began to plague him in Indiana, and he has since been trying to find his footing as a defense-first role player with the Rockets and Heat. During his 42 healthy regular season contests with Miami in 2022/23, the 6’4″ vet averaged 10.7 PPG, 3.5 APG, 3.0 RPG and 1.4 SPG in 26.3 MPG, mostly off the Heat bench.
Suns Sign Yuta Watanabe, Chimezie Metu
JULY 3: The Suns have officially signed Watanabe and Metu to their minimum-salary contracts, per NBA.com’s transaction log.
JUNE 30: The Suns are reportedly adding two new free agents to surround their starry core of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Deandre Ayton.
Sources inform Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link) that sharpshooting ex-Nets small forward Yuta Watanabe has reached an agreement to join the Suns. Meanwhile, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (via Twitter) that former Kings big man Chimezie Metu is also signing a one-year deal with the team.
Exact terms of these new contracts have yet to be revealed. Presumably, both these deals would be for veteran’s minimums, due to Phoenix’s current spending restrictions.
Watanabe, a 6’9″ swingman out of George Washington, gives Phoenix some lethal long range versatility on the wing following a breakout season in Brooklyn, most of which was spent playing alongside fellow ex-Net Durant. The 28-year-old averaged 5.6 PPG on a .491/.444/.723 slash line, along with 2.4 RPG, in his 58 contests with Brooklyn.
Metu, a 6’9″ power forward/center out of USC, had spent all five of his prior NBA seasons with Sacramento. In 2022/23 under new head coach Mike Brown, he saw his numbers and role take a bit of a dip while the club improved to a 48-34 record and its first playoff berth since 2006. Across 66 contests, Metu averaged 4.9 PPG and 3.0 RPG in 10.4 MPG. He will for now serve as a key frontcourt backup.
Atlantic Notes: Smart, Porzingis, Petrusev, VanVleet
Longtime Celtics guard Marcus Smart had a conversation with team president Brad Stevens in mid-June and was assured at that time that he’d remain with the team this summer, Smart tells Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. A week later, he was gone, having been traded to the Grizzlies as part of a three-team package to send Kristaps Porzingis to Boston.
“It was a shock,” Smart said. “My agent called my fiancée and she woke me up out of a sleep, literally, right after the deal had been made and I think [the media] had already tweeted it out. That’s how we found out.”
The Celtics had originally intended to include another guard, Malcolm Brogdon, as part of a three-team deal with the Clippers that would have landed them Porzingis. However, those talks fell through, forcing Boston to pivot to the deal sending Smart to Memphis. Smart said he understands it’s a “business” and has no hard feelings toward the organization, even if he didn’t learn about his exit in the way he would’ve liked.
“Anybody who knows me knows that I’m the first one to tell people, you can’t put personal with business, it just doesn’t mix,” he said. “… But for me, it was just the [lack of] courtesy. They probably already knew they were thinking about trading me. They had this trade in their back pocket just in case something else didn’t happen.”
Smart enjoyed a solid run with the Celtics, even earning Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2022 en route to an NBA Finals appearance. His defense slipped somewhat in 2022/23, but he remain a valuable two-way leader on a club that wound up being just one win shy of a second consecutive Finals.
There’s more out of the Atlantic Division:
- The two-year, $60MM extension Porzingis is finalizing with the Celtics could become as a massive monetary coup for Boston, argues Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston. The reported deal, which will begin in 2024/25, is worth $17MM less than the maximum possible extension Porzingis could have signed off his current contract, and Forsberg believes a strong season would have put the big man in position to command even more money had he reached unrestricted free agency next summer. Porzingis enjoyed one of his healthiest seasons in years and was fairly effective with the Wizards on both sides of the hardwood in ’22/23.
- Two years after being drafted with the No. 50 pick out of Gonzaga by the Sixers, big man Filip Petrusev is confident he can produce at the NBA level, writes Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Following his selection in the draft, the 6’11” center suited up for teams in Turkey and Belgrade. Petrusev, who will play on Philadelphia’s summer league club this month, is hoping to ink a deal with the Sixers for the 2023/24 season.
- Longtime Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet, who won a title with Toronto in 2019, is moving on to the Rockets on a lucrative new contract. He penned a heartfelt farewell missive to the team on his official Instagram. “I am forever indebted to the franchise that gave me a shot when no one else would,” VanVleet wrote. “We built things together that can never be broken and accomplished things that will stand forever… To the city, franchise and country that watched me grow… THANK YOU.”
Pacific Notes: Goodwin, Reaves, D-Lo, Vincent, Lakers, K. Martin
Two new but established Suns leaders, star guard Bradley Beal and head coach Frank Vogel, are looking forward to seeing the impact that another former Wizard, Jordan Goodwin, will have on the team, writes Dana Scott of The Arizona Republic.
The 6’3″ combo guard was part of the package Phoenix acquired in its blockbuster trade for Beal. Goodwin, still just 24, carved out a significant role off the bench in Washington in 2022/23. In 62 contests last season, he averaged 6.6 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 2.7 APG and 0.9 SPG.
“I think Jordan is going to surprise a lot of people,” Beal said. “A lot may not know who he is, but he is nasty tenacious defender who loves the game, who will compete at both ends of the floor.”
“He’s a very compelling talent,” Vogel said. “As we fill out the rest of our roster, we want to make sure we’re one of the most physical, toughest teams in the NBA. And Jordan at the guard position represents that, so I’m excited to watch him work.”
There’s more out of the Pacific Division:
- The Lakers are looking to maximize the skill set of returning guard Austin Reaves, according to Jovan Buha of The Athletic, who hears that the team will explore the 6’5″ swingman’s play-making abilities by running the offense through him more often next season. After being moved into a full-time starting role for the Lakers during the season, the 25-year-old averaged 18.3 PPG on .571/.486/.898 shooting splits, 6.1 APG, and 3.3 RPG.
- Although D’Angelo Russell is the early favorite to be the Lakers‘ starting point guard next season, Buha hears from sources that new addition Gabe Vincent could win the role if he outperforms Russell during L.A.’s training camp.
- The Lakers are looking to add a center to fill its 14th roster spot, Buha adds. Sources tell Buha that Mohamed Bamba and Tristan Thompson are both candidates for the gig, but that the club could also wait out the market and see if more intriguing possibilities emerge.
- Newly acquired Clippers small forward Kenyon Martin Jr. could help infuse an older L.A. roster with a healthy dose of athleticism, Law Murray of The Athletic writes. Martin, a Southern California native, brings an explosive vertical burst to the table, though he won’t score much outside of the post. His main contributions will be in and around that terrain on offense, while defensively he has some tools but still needs to develop.
Kings Sign Jalen Slawson On Two-Way Deal
Former Furman small forward Jalen Slawson has signed a two-way contract with the Kings, per a team press release.
Sacramento selected the 6’7″ forward with the No. 54 pick in this year’s draft. The 23-year-old was voted the Southern Conference Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year for his efforts in the 2022/23 NCAA season.
He was also a two-time All-Southern Conference First Team selection during his collegiate tenure.
Across 36 contests last year, he averaged 15.6 PPG on .556/.394/.775 shooting splits, along with 7.1 RPG, 3.2 APG, 1.5 SPG and 1.5 BPG.
Considered a skilled creator with intriguing upside, his lack of athleticism and an occasional tendency for turnovers limited his draft stock somewhat.
Rockets To Acquire Patty Mills, Flip Him To Thunder
JULY 2, 1:00pm: Mills will be heading to the Thunder, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reports (via Twitter) that Oklahoma City will receive unspecified draft compensation as part of the deal.
JULY 2, 8:58am: Mills’ eventual destination remains a mystery for now. Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian (Twitter link) says his understanding is that the veteran guard won’t be headed to the Grizzlies.
According to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle, the Rockets traded for Mills in order to acquire an extra second-round draft pick. That’s not quite the same as saying the Nets are sending a single second-rounder to Houston as part of the deal, but that’s our working assumption for now.
JULY 1, 9:02pm: Mills won’t be staying with Houston, according to Iko, who tweets that the veteran guard will be included in an expanded version of the Brooks sign-and-trade and will be rerouted to a different team. It’s not clear at this point if that team will be the Grizzlies or another club.
JULY 1, 5:39pm: The Rockets continue to fill out their previously youth-heavy roster with more seasoned additions early in the 2023 offseason.
Shams Charania and Kelly Iko of The Athletic report (Twitter link) that Houston is putting the finishing touches on a trade for sharpshooting Nets veteran combo guard Patty Mills.
It’s unclear exactly what the Rockets are sending to Brooklyn in the deal, but the Nets aren’t taking back any players, per NetsDaily (Twitter link).
The 6’1″ vet remains a reliable catch-and-shoot option even 14 years into his NBA career. Last season for a playoff-bound Brooklyn team, the 34-year-old Saint Mary’s alum averaged 6.2 PPG on .411/.366/.833 shooting splits, 1.4 APG and 1.1 RPG across 14.2 MPG, his lowest output since the 2012/13 season.
Mills was a huge bench contributor on two NBA Finals-bound Spurs clubs in 2013 and 2014, winning it all in ’14. A deal for him would mark just the latest move clearly made with an eye towards expediting Houston’s timeline.
The Rockets, a team already loaded with recent lottery picks, have also inked experienced free agents Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks, and Jock Landale during this free agency period. Houston also signed controversial former Celtics head coach Ime Udoka with an eye toward professionalizing its locker room identity.
Lakers Sign D’Angelo Russell To Two-Year Deal
July 7: Russell’s new contract is now official, the Lakers announced (Twitter link via Jovan Buha of The Athletic).
July 1: The Lakers and point guard D’Angelo Russell have reached an agreement on a two-year contract that will be worth $37MM, his agents at CAA Basketball tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. According to Wojnarowski, Russell will hold a player option for 2024/25 as part of the deal.
Los Angeles acquired the 6’4″ vet, whom the Lakers initially drafted with the second pick in 2015, from the Timberwolves this past February. The Russell acquisition headlined a flurry of tactical moves designed to improve the club’s positional balance and add more shooting around stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
The 27-year-old performed exceptionally well as a supplemental scorer and passer upon being installed as L.A.’s starting point guard. Across his 17 healthy regular season contests with Los Angeles, he averaged 17.4 PPG on .484/.414/.735 shooting splits, plus 6.1 APG and 2.9 RPG.
The playoffs were a different story. His jump shooting took a major dive, and opposing teams often targeted him on defense. Russell averaged 13.3 PPG on a .426/.310/.769 slash line, 4.6 APG, 2.9 RPG and 0.7 SPG in the playoffs.
Yesterday’s announced signing of ex-Heat point guard Gabe Vincent, a better defender who enjoyed a much better postseason, made Russell’s future in Los Angeles seem a bit more tenuous. Though Russell’s contract makes it seem like he will at least begin the season as the team’s starter, one wonders if that will be the case at the end of the season.